Slovak Spectator 1st Feb 2018, Uranium ore will not be mined in the Čermeľ-Jahodná locality in the Košice Region. This stems from the final ruling issued by the Supreme
Court, which decided not to extend a permit for a geological survey of
uranium ore at the site close to Košice, the TASR newswire reported. The
court has thus ended the legal proceedings and upheld a decision by the
Environment Ministry.
https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20751213/uranium-mining-near-kosice-definitely-rejected.html
Buried In Trump’s Nuclear Report: A Russian Doomsday Weapon, NPR , February 2, 2018 GEOFF BRUMFIEL Today, the Trump administration released a report on the state of America’s nuclear weaponry. The assessment, known as a Nuclear Posture Review, mainly concerns U.S. nukes and missiles.
But buried in the plan is a mention of a mysterious Russian weapon called “Status-6.” On paper, at least, Status-6 appears to be a kind of doomsday device. The report refers to it as “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered, undersea autonomous torpedo.”
“The radius of total or near-total destruction is the size of a pretty large metropolitan area, actually,” says Edward Geist, a Russia specialist at the RAND Corporation who has spent time looking at the weapon. “It’s difficult to imagine in normal terms.”……
Status-6 looks like a giant torpedo about a third the length of a big Russian submarine. According to the slide, it is nuclear-powered, meaning it can roam for months and even possibly years beneath the ocean without surfacing. Its payload is a nuclear warhead “many tens of megatons in yield,” Geist says.
That’s thousands of times more powerful than the bombs dropped at the end of World War II and more powerful than anything currently in the U.S. and Russian arsenals.
Status-6 would launch from beneath a Russian submarine. It would shoot at a depth too deep to be intercepted, and travel for thousands of miles. Upon reaching its target along the U.S. coastline, it would detonate, swallowing up whatever city happened to be nearby.
“The only possible U.S. targets are large port cities,” says Mark Schneider, a senior analyst with the National Institute for Public Policy wrote in an e-mail. “The detonation of Status-6 in any of them would essentially wipe out their population into the far suburbs.”
“The detonation would cause a very large amount of radioactive fallout,” adds Pavel Podvig, an arms control expert who runs a blog called Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces. Podvig believes the weapon could potentially bathe the entire Northeast Corridor in radioactive soot.
Status-6 would probably be used as a “third-strike” weapon of last resort. If Russia fell under attack from the U.S. and couldn’t retaliate with its missiles, it might trigger Status-6: A doomsday machine. Or at least a doomsday-ish machine.
Then again, the whole thing might be a fake.
“The drawing of this drone looks more like an enlarged drawing of a smaller torpedo,” says Podvig. In other words, it looks like the Russians may have just taken some torpedo clip-art, blown it up to terrifying size and then broadcast it on state television.
Why?
“It’s a way to get our attention,” says Geist.
Geist says that the “leak” of Status-6 was deliberate. Russia worries that U.S. missile defenses might be able to shoot down its missiles in a nuclear war. By showing a plan for Status-6, Russia is warning the U.S. that if it continues to build such defensive systems, then Russia will find another way to strike: one that can’t be intercepted.
“My read of the whole Status-6 slide leak is that the Russians were trying to send us a message,” Geist says.
Podvig agrees that the leak of Status-6 is probably just a warning shot. But the fact it appeared in the Pentagon’s newest report on nuclear weapons shows that some war planners are taking the idea seriously.
There may be some politics involved in that decision as well, says Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. The Trump administration is pushing hard for upgrades to America’s nuclear arsenal. In his State of the Union address, the president called for making the arsenal “so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.”
Citing Status-6 helps to build the case that upgrades to American nukes are needed, Kristensen says.
For all the rhetoric around Status-6, Podvig and Geist both believe that the program isn’t completely made-up. Geist says a long-range underwater drone without a nuclear warhead would be a useful weapon……..https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/02/02/582087310/buried-in-trumps-nuclear-report-a-russian-doomsday-weapon
Study casts doubts on feasibility of keeping nuclear plants going http://www.brusselstimes.com/business/technology/10206/study-casts-doubts-on-feasibility-of-keeping-nuclear-plants-going, Jason Bennett, 01 February 2018 A new study by the Energyville research centre casts doubts on the financial soundness of further extending the life of Belgium’s nuclear plants, ‘Le Soir’ and ‘De Standaard’ dailies reported on Thursday.
The nuclear plants are scheduled to close in 2025. In that case, the annual cost of Belgium’s electricity system will be 5.415 billion euros in 2030, three times more than the current cost. If the two most recent reactors are kept working until 2035, the cost would drop to 5.130 billion euros.
On the other hand, by 2040, the two scenarios would amount to roughly the same cost, about 7.19 billion euros, with just a difference of about two million euros between them.
According to Jan Vande Putte, an energy expert at Greenpeace, prolonging nuclear generation merely postpones the required investments in replacement capacity.
Xinhuanet 1st Feb 2018, China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), a major Chinese nuclear
power operator, said Wednesday that nuclear projects in Britain were
proceeding well. He Yu, chairman of the board of CGN, said since the deals
were inked in 2016 with French energy company EDF and the British
government, CGN has invested 1.7 billion British pounds in order to advance
the projects. CGN signed agreements in 2016 for Hinkley Point C (HPC), a
nuclear project in Somerset, and a suite of agreements relating to the
Sizewell C (SZC) in eastern England and Bradwell B projects (BRB) in Essex.
“A total of 15 Chinese suppliers and contractors have passed a preliminary
qualification assessment for the HPC project,” He said. “HPC, which is
Britain’s first new nuclear power station in a generation, is the largest
construction in Europe.”
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/01/c_136940068.htm
Reuters 31st Jan 2018, Notable Chinese investments in Britain include the Hinkley C nuclear power
station which is being built by China General Nuclear Power Corp and the
British arm of France’s EDF (EDF.PA), while British firms, such as Rolls
Royce (RR.L), have won large deals from Chinese firms to supply items like
plane engines. Both May and senior Chinese officials have restated their
commitment to the “golden era” in ties but a row over May’s decision
to delay approval for the Chinese-funded Hinkley nuclear plant in late 2016
chilled relations. However, Britain was the first Western country to sign
up to the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and it sent
Finance Minister Philip Hammond to a Beijing summit last year about
President Xi Jinping’s flagship ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ – a
trillion-dollar infrastructure-led push to build a modern Silk Road.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-britain/chinas-li-says-ties-with-britain-to-stay-unchanged-through-brexit-idUSKBN1FK023
NDA 1st Feb 2018, Specialist scuba divers are plumbing new depths to haul radioactive waste
out of the nuclear fuel storage pond at Sizewell A. The team of American
underwater experts tackled their first UK ‘nuclear dive’ at Dungeness A
in 2016 where, wearing full protective suits and shielded from radiation by
the water, they were able to cut up empty fuel storage skips and retrieve
other pieces of submerged equipment.
The ponds were used to store thousands
of used nuclear fuel rods, held in metal skips, after they were discharged
from the reactors. After the last of the fuel was transported to Sellafield
for reprocessing, the skips and a range of redundant items, including
sludge, were left behind in the water.
Pond clean-out conventionally takes
place using remotely operated equipment to lift the whole radioactive skips
clear of the water, exposing them to the air, where they are carefully cut
up before decontamination, storage and eventual disposal. This process is
slow with potential radiation dose risks for workers. By doing the work
under water, the divers can cut up the skips more safely, access awkward
areas more easily, making the whole process safer, faster and more
productive.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/diving-into-innovation-at-sizewell
NDA 31st Jan 2018, Robots controlled by smart auto-navigation systems are doing battle in an
£8.5 million competition to find ways to tackle Sellafield radioactive
hotspots. Last year, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and fellow
government agency Innovate UK launched a search for innovative technologies
that could be combined into a single seamless process for use in facilities
that will soon embark on a major decommissioning journey.
Working closely with Sellafield Ltd, who would use the technology, submissions to a
competitive process were invited from all industrial sectors. Five
promising ideas have now made it through to the final stages after being
whittled down from a shortlist of 15. The newly formed consortia are each
set to receive up to £1.5 million to build prototype demonstrators for
testing in a simulated radioactive environment.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/robots-compete-in-nuclear-decommissioning-challenge
“Finland’s Pyhäjoki nuclear plant takes our pension money” While four million elderly Russians live below the poverty line, the country’s pension fund pays for Rosatom-backed nuclear plant in northern-Finland. «Deeply unfair,» says Oleg Bodrov from the closed town of Sosnovy Bor near St. Petersburg. Barents Observer By Thomas Nilsen, January 29, 2018
NuClearNews No 104 New Nuclear –Dance Macabre
With the Japanese media reporting somewhat prematurely that the UK and Japanese Governments have agreed to provide the lion’s share of financing for two new reactors at Wylfa on the Island of Anglesey, and EDF Energy claiming it can build Sizewell C for at least 20% less than Hinkley Point C, one has to wonder if there is some sort of battle going on between EDF and Hitachi to get their hands on limited taxpayer funds.
But all either company seems to be getting from Government at the moment is warm words. In the meantime, as we shall see in a subsequent story, the Government has cut its projections for nuclear capacity in 2035 from 17GW to 14GW.
Two other EPRs are under construction at Taishan (China). (2) The latest commissioning delay at Taishan is the third in two years and will lead to a further deferral of 5 billion yuan (US$770 million) in annual revenues and potentially more cost overruns, according to ratings agency Moody’s. CGN said right at the end of December that generation at the two reactors had been delayed to 2018 and 2019, from the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018 respectively. (3) CGN, which is building the plant in a joint-venture with EDF, admitted, in December, to ’partial defects’ in the welding of the three parts of the deaerator. But the state-owned company stressed that the component, which helps cool down the reactor, ’is not part of the nuclear safety system’.
But international consultant, Mycle Schneider, says the problem goes way deeper than that. It poses questions about lax quality control which could impact on nuclear safety. He says this goes beyond a lack of transparency and constitutes a major indictment of CGN. (4)
Sizewell C
EDF claims it can build a second nuclear power station to follow Hinkley Point C (HPC) for20% less. HPC is expected to cost it at least £19.6 billion, and as much as £20.3 billion if delays push the start date back from 2025 to 2027, (although EDF says it is confident HPC will come on linein 2025).
The majority French Government-owned company says it can cut the construction cost for Sizewell C (SZC) thanks to efficiencies from “copying and pasting” large elements of HPC. (1)
This is for a reactor type which has yet to be built successfully anywhere in the world, with projects in France, Finland and China all delayed. CGN, the Chinese company working in partnership with EDF in Britain and China, confirmed further delays at their Taishan project in January. (See Box 1)
EDF expects to be able to make savings at SZC by eliminating the majority of the £2 billion costs it spent on pre-construction work at HPC. It also expects to make billions more in savings by using contractors and equipment that have already gone through training and certification processes for use on nuclear sites. Cutting the cost of building to about £15 billion could help to reduce the subsidy contract price to nearer £70 per megawatt hour (MWh) (See Box 2).
The Company believes that significant further reductions could be made if the government were to agree a new financing model so that developers did not have to bear all the upfront construction cost. EDF, along with the rest of the industry and the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee, is urging ministers to look at alternative funding models that the National Audit Office said would have significantly reduced the eventual cost to consumers had they been used for HPC. These include the government taking a direct equity stake or adopting a regulated asset base model similar to that used for the Thames Tideway Tunnel, under which developers would receive income during construction. Without such a change, the project is unlikely to go ahead since EDF, which required a French state bailout to afford HPC, could not fund another plant in advance. (5)
The Guardian explained that the Thames Water approach for London’s £4.2bn super-sewer allows the project to be taken off the company’s balance sheet by creating a new company that other investors pour equity into. Pension funds are among the potential investors EDF is hoping to court. Unlike a consortium seeking a public stake for a separate nuclear power plant at Wylfa in Wales, Simone Rossi, EDF’s new chief executive said government finance was not a prerequisite. (6)
Rossi says he’s is in talks with major investment funds to support the project. He confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that early stage talks have already begun and a deal may be agreed before the end of the year. The pressure to drive nuclear subsidies lower follows a dramatic decline in costs for other low-carbon energy technologies such as wind and solar power. Offshore wind in particular has halved its costs in recent years with recent projects accepting deals of under £58/MWh to build turbines. (7)
Dr Dave Toke, reader in Energy Politics at Aberdeen University, said EDF’s ‘cheap nuclear’ plan will ruin taxpayers. If the plan involves getting taxpayers to pay for a large chunk of the ‘equity’ financing of the plant and getting the Government to guarantee the bulk of the rest of the costs, this could lead to the biggest black hole in the nation’s finances since the financial crash which would have a catastrophic effect on public finances and deprive the Exchequer of many billions £s that could otherwise be spent on public services. This will be the subsidy to top all subsidieshttp://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/NuClearNews_No104.pdf
Reuters 30th Jan 2018, French utility EDF has proposed to start shutting down some reactors from
2029 onwards as part of France’s long-term energy plan which aims to
reduce the share of atomic power in its electricity mix, said the head of
EDF’s nuclear power arm.
The government has started discussions with
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and energy specialists and companies
over France’s future energy mix, and the first draft of the
“multi-annual energy plan” (PPE) is expected by the end of June.
Philippe Sasseigne – who heads up the nuclear power part of EDF – told
journalists that as part of that discussion, the company was proposing to
shut down more reactors from 2029. EDF, which operates France’s 58
nuclear reactors, will halt its Fessenhiem nuclear plant once it starts
production at the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor under construction.
https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFP6N1IH00N
Arctic Frontiers forum totes up Russia’s northern nuclear hazards, When Norway assesses potential nuclear risks in Northern Russia, it counts among them not just decades of intentionally scuttled radioactive trash – including two entire nuclear submarines – but also vessels transporting spent nuclear fuel throughout the Arctic, specifically from Andreyeva Bay. Bellona by Charles Digges,
When Norway assesses potential nuclear risks in Northern Russia, it counts among them not just decades of intentionally scuttled radioactive trash – including two entire nuclear submarines – but also vessels transporting spent nuclear fuel throughout the Arctic, specifically from Andreyeva Bay.
These considerations were part of a seminar held at the Arctic Frontiers forum last week in Tromsø, Norway, which tallied up ongoing threats of nuclear environmental contamination in Northwest Russia.
For decades, Norway, along with numerous other donor nations, has invested millions of dollars in improving the safety and security of Northwest Russia’s vast Cold War nuclear legacy sites.
According to Øyvind Selnæs, a senior adviser with the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority, Norway expects to see a spike in the number of ships passing through the Arctic carrying nuclear fuel and materials as Russia seeks to build new nuclear icebreakers to guide traffic along the Northern Sea Route. He also forecasted an increase the number vessels carrying spent nuclear fuel.
“It took many years and huge funds of international assistance to start exporting SNF from the former naval base in the Murmansk region – Andreeva Bay,” Selnaes said.” Last year, this process began, and it will take several years. Risks associated with the maritime transportation sector will now increase. ” ……http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2018-01-arctic-frontiers-forum-totes-up-russias-northern-nuclear-hazards
Former nuclear power Kazakhstan shares lessons for North Korea, Nikkei Asian Review, January 30, 2018 UN ambassador highlights benefits of denuclearization, harm suffered by testing, ARIANA KING, UNITED NATIONS –– Few nuclear powers have ever volunteered to dismantle their arsenals, but Kazakhstan’s U.N. ambassador makes the case that a country stands only to gain by such a dramatic gesture.
“With the time passing, we more and more are convinced that that was a very right decision at the right moment,” Kairat Umarov, the ambassador and current president of the Security Council, told the Nikkei Asian Review in a recent interview. “And today we are very much proud of this decision,” he said, because Kazakhstan “gained a lot from this step.”……….
“The nuclear-free status of Kazakhstan may serve as an example and as practical guidance for other countries,” Nazarbayev said at that meeting, noting the “high international standing” his country gained by renouncing nuclear weapons. “We call upon all other states to follow our example. We called upon Iran to do so. Now we call upon North Korea to do so.”
“One thing we know for sure: Nuclear capability is not a good defense,” Umarov told The Nikkei. “It’s not a good way to protect a country.”
Possessing such weapons makes a country a target for other nuclear-armed nations, the ambassador added. “So that’s our experience, and we think that anything can be avoided if there is enough political will,” he said.
Umarov said attempts to persuade his North Korean counterparts of the merits of denuclearization have not been fruitful. “But at the end of the day, we think that it is political courage of leaders which really makes things different,” he said. A decision by North Korea to denuclearize would be “received with applause in the international community.”
For Kazakhstan, however, the voices of the victims of nuclear testing at the Semipalatinsk site also led Nazarbayev to dismantle the country’s nuclear program, Umarov said. Though decades have passed since the former Soviet republic closed Semipalatinsk, the legacy of nuclear testing continues.
“We right now have 1.5 million people who are suffering from the nuclear testing site,” Umarov said, citing genetic deformities that have plagued the population and continue to affect newborn children — three generations later.
“It is a very acute, sensitive issue for us,” Umarov asserted, recalling his work for a nongovernmental group in which he fought to shut Semipalatinsk. “So it’s not just we are playing with the politics, or trying to show that we are so principled because of political reasons. It is a very real thing with our population, with our people, and we are reflecting here the will of the people on that issue.”……….https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/Former-nuclear-power-Kazakhstan-shares-lessons-for-North-Korea
Morning Star 27th Jan 2018, Fury as scandal-hit nuclear agency demands 23-fold radiation emissions
increase. CAMPAIGNERS have gone nuclear after the Atomic Weapons
Establishment (AWE) applied this week to increase radiation output from its
Berkshire site by over 2,000 per cent.
AWE, which produces Trident nuclear warheads, had two sites placed in renewed special measures last August over
safety concerns. Now the company is asking the Environment Agency to raise
the 4.4 megabecquerel radiation limit to 100MBq for tests it claims will
help counter nuclear terrorism.
But the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND) said it was nuclear proliferation that increases chances of dangerous
material falling into hostile hands. The group also sounded the alarm over
the risk to public health. CND radiation expert Ian Fairlie said: “While
radiation amounts appear relatively low in the application, they represent
a 23-fold increase. If radiation is released into the water supply in
spikes, this could present a danger.”
Times 28th Jan 2018, Britons could be taking showers and warming homes with hot water piped
directly from a nuclear reactor, under proposals to build small atomic power stations in cities. Urban nuclear reactors, similar in size to those
in nuclear submarines, could generate not only electricity but also hot water, suggests a report by Policy Exchange, a think tank.
The paper reflects government thinking, as the National Nuclear Laboratory hasalready drawn up plans for a first “small modular reactor” at Trawsfynydd in north Wales. The Department for Business, Energy andIndustrial Strategy has also supported the idea. Such reactors could befuelled by plutonium, a waste product of Britain’s existing nuclearindustry. Stockpiles exceed 100 tons. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/mini-nuclear-reactors-could-heat-homes-pxk3h8nkl
French overseas minister open to nuclear study https://www.onepng.com/2018/01/french-overseas-minister-open-to.html, 1/26/2018 The French overseas minister says she is not opposed to calls for a study into the possible genetic consequences of the French nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia.
Girardin has acknowledged the concerns, saying it has to be established how to deal with the question and to see if it is possible to work on it with other countries.
The minister has restated that the former president Francois Hollande recognised two years ago in Papeete the French legacy and assumed responsibility.
He has continued to urge Paris to compensate the nuclear test victims suffering from poor health.
Until 2009, France claimed its weapons tests were clean but then passed a law accepting compensation demands.
Hundreds of applications have been filed since but almost all have been thrown out.
FT 27th Jan 2018, Electricity Demand Letter: Andrew Warren Chairman, British Energy Efficiency Federation; Your
report “Tough decisions loom on green energy” (January 23) is based on a
false premise. It assumes that demand for electricity will just keep on
rising. Such inexorable growth has always been the official outlook. As
indeed it was a decade ago, when today’s usage level was projected to be up
by 15 per cent or more.
Instead, across 10 years electricity consumption
has dropped by more than 16 per cent, a differential of over 30 per cent
between those forecasts and reality. That dramatic trend has occurred even
without the assistance of any very purposeful drive for greater energy
efficiency – which, as your article grudgingly concedes, is now to be a
prime feature of the prime minister’s new environment policy. That is
surely the best choice to “keep the lights on” of all.
https://www.ft.com/content/cb8471cc-0136-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
1 June Webinar – The High Cost of Nuclear Power – Register
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
nuclear-news 